la sainte présence de Dieu." Then a temporary suspense of all school business ensues, to afford time for certain mental prayer, which the scholars have been taught by the masters. A reflection, as it is called, is read at the morning prayer, and is commented on by the master in a practical style. There is a regular Prière de soir, followed by a reflection in the same manner. There is a prayer used in the school daily for the king. Also every Saturday and on vigils, and certain other holydays, particular prayers are said.

It may further be remarked as indicating the spirit of this institution, that every day, as soon as the scholars have left the school, the masters assemble in it, and kneel down and join in certain prayers, the first being said by the inspector, or chief master, "Vive Jésus dans nos cœurs!" To which the others reply, “A jamais." Besides these prayers, wherever it is possible, the scholars attend mass every day.

The rules for the masters to teach good behaviour are very well worthy of notice. The corrections of the faults of the scholars consist of pénitences and punitions; the former are, keeping a boy standing, or on his knees, or in an ignominious place; the latter are pensums (i. e. impositions), or, rarely, the use of a leather thong on the hand. Frère Nicolas concluded his account of their operations by giving us a striking history of their success in their evening schools for adults, which have been recently established, and which seem to have had an extraordinary

effect in checking all tumultuary dispositions in the common people who belong to them, as was recently proved on a very striking occasion. When a great part of the lower orders of Paris were banding together for revolutionary purposes, and parading the streets of the metropolis in tumultuous mobs, none of the members of these adult schools, he assured me, took any part in these insurrectionary movements.

I cannot close this short account without adverting to the principle of deference of every member of the order to those who are above him, and of all to the Superior. I received after this visit a letter from Frère Nicolas, giving the address of their branch Society in London, as follows:-St. Patrick's Schools, Tudor Place, Tottenham Court Road; Brother Kelly, Director of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Friday, August 23.-Very rainy day. Called on M. Bonnetty; he gave me two numbers of his Université Catholique, in which are two elaborate articles on the life and character of St. Anselm of Canterbury, by Count Montalembert. M. B. conducted us to the very interesting Museum of Middle-age Art, and domestic furniture, at the Hôtel Clugny; the court of which leads into a large subterranean enclosure, being the remains of the baths of the palace inhabited by the Emperor Julian; it is, I believe, the only vestige of the imperial times of Rome at Paris. Afterwards, went to the Institut to see M. Boissonnade, member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and

professor of Greek at the College de France, and the well-known editor of various Greek authors. He was engaged at a séance of the Academy; but he kindly came away for a short time to give me an interview. The library of the Institute is a most attractive place, from its space, its quiet, and the richness of its collection.

Saturday, August 24.-St. Bartholomew's day. Very rainy. At seven o'clock this morning set out from No. 8, Impasse de la Pompe, behind the Théâtre Porte St. Martin, in a diligence for Juilly, which is about nine leagues to the north of Paris. I was in the coupé with one fellow-traveller and a pointer dog, which he was taking with him for the commencement of the shooting season. A new game law has just been passed, which is intended to put a stop (by means of an increase in the price of a license, which is now raised to twenty-five francs) to the too great facility hitherto existing of carrying arms. This, it is supposed, will tend to augment the quantity of game.

My companion was one of that very numerous class in France who appear to be full of good-nature, and tell you, after the first hour of intercourse, all about their wives and families, and yet seem to have no fixed principles nor any serious thoughts concerning matters of the highest importance. My friend, for instance, told me before we had got much beyond the Barrière," that he never went to mass, and that no

one in his neighbourhood ever did." I mean men of his position of life-for he said that his wife attended regularly, and that he allowed her to do just as she liked in this matter, and to bring up his son in the same way he had nothing, he said, to object to religion, "que c'était au contraire une très-jolie chose, but then the misfortune was that it was so wretchedly taught (si mal enseignée1)." He then cited some instances of cupidity of money and domination among the priesthood; spoke of the sums to be paid by the poor for having the bodies of their deceased relatives carried into the church (the priests having nothing to do with the churchyards, which belong to the communes, not to the church), and also of the admission by tickets to churches in Paris: he mentioned Nôtre Dame de Lorette as an aristocratical church, which, he said, was a place of fashionable resort, and frequented by loungers of the higher classes, and to which they were admitted by tickets as to the opera. He animadverted also on the sums paid for chairs in the churches, which were not places of worship for the poor, but for the rich, whereas every church ought, he said, to be an omnibus, that is, for all the world alike. I asked whether the clergy were not reduced to unworthy devices for getting money by their in

4 Un homme, qui avoue ne jamais aller à l'église, pourrait être incompétent pour juger la manière dont la religion est enseignée. Le malheureux dont il est question aurait bien dû dire s'il avait jamais cherché de connaître ce qu'il se plaint d'ignorer.

digence? and whether this indigence was not their misfortune, and not their fault, but that of the nation? To be sure, he replied, they were very mal rétribués, especially those in country parishes, and every body expected them to give alms to all beggars. (N. B. There are no street-beggars in Paris.)

He passed from the clergy to the nobility, of whose character, both with respect to morality and intelligence, he spoke in the most unmeasured terms of contempt, citing some examples of public profligacy on their part, and asserting that the general character was too correctly represented by these specimens. I asked whether the country had not to thank itself also for these unhappy examples on the part of its aristocracy, because it had excluded them from the public career of legislators by abolishing the hereditary peerage; and it was evident that they could not descend to follow the ordinary callings of négociants, &c., and thus they were doomed to the curse of indolence and sensual indulgence. He replied, that this was true.

I arrived at Juilly at eleven o'clock, and shortly after made my way to the College, which is approached by a handsome gateway and a park-like entrance. The buildings are remarkably lofty and spacious, and have a very dignified and commanding aspect; but there is scarcely any thing of an ancient ecclesiastical character about them; they are not ranged in a quadrangle like our colleges, but consist of a long